A general discussion on the issue of ranged

[jagars]

every 3/4 player does that

[Joker86]

walls of text, walls of text everywhere

seriously guys, 150 words or less lol.

or at the very least do tiny summarys then put ur main point in spoilers

It's always the same. People trying to discuss a complicated topic by short posts.


Always looks like cavemen trying to build a robot with sticks...   


Edit: My first post has 4000 symbols. I think I can expect people to read it if they want to solve one of the oldest problems of cRPG. If they think this can be done with one liners like "Just nerf bow dmg", then they disqualify themselves from the discussion, and quite honestly, if they don't read my posts: funny coincidence, because I don't read the one liners. It can only be a half assed, superficial opinion with a solution which wouldn't help anything. If the whole ranged issue is so easy to solve that you can do it with a few words, why do we still have this problem then? I know the internet has a bad effect on our attention span and our patience when gathering information, but one must actively works against something like that. I remember the time when I had only BOOKS to collect all the info I had for a presentation at school, it took actually time, you had to read into things and it was a real inquiry. So please, for the love of god, pull yourself together and take those what? 4? 5 minutes to read through my post.

[Kafein]

If we assume the proportion of ranged to be growing exponentially (because each new ranged player increases the incentive to switch to ranged), then a linear nerf to ranged isn't going to solve the problem in the long run but merely delay it.

It's a bit like a Malthusian collapse right now. Instead of exponentially growing food needs we have exponentially growing ranged pop, and instead of linear growth of crop yields we have linear growth of nerfs to keep the impact of a ranged overpopulation as low as possible. I'd rather see some introduced mechanics that would regulate the amount of ranged by naturally decreasing the incentives to play ranged as the proportion of ranged players grows.

I think the only reason we still have infantry players is that not all players are the same and far from all of them are completely rational when they choose which class to play. I stress that this is the only reason because I don't really beleive there are obvious weaknesses of a full ranged team that can be exploited by a balanced team, unless the map is completely onesided. I've rarely seen melee heavy teams win in any other way than killing the other team's melee as efficiently as possible thus outnumbering the remaining ranged, allowing a victory. It usually has to happen very fast otherwise the team gets whittled by projectiles and can't get a devastating enough victory in melee to be able to lose a couple more guys to ranged.

[Jarold]

I like the "walls of text" they have a lot of good points and suggestions in them. I particularly like San's suggestions. Keep em coming!

[Xeen]

If we assume the proportion of ranged to be growing exponentially (because each new ranged player increases the incentive to switch to ranged), then a linear nerf to ranged isn't going to solve the problem in the long run but merely delay it.

It's a bit like a Malthusian collapse right now. Instead of exponentially growing food needs we have exponentially growing ranged pop, and instead of linear growth of crop yields we have linear growth of nerfs to keep the impact of a ranged overpopulation as low as possible. I'd rather see some introduced mechanics that would regulate the amount of ranged by naturally decreasing the incentives to play ranged as the proportion of ranged players grows.

I think the only reason we still have infantry players is that not all players are the same and far from all of them are completely rational when they choose which class to play. I stress that this is the only reason because I don't really beleive there are obvious weaknesses of a full ranged team that can be exploited by a balanced team, unless the map is completely onesided. I've rarely seen melee heavy teams win in any other way than killing the other team's melee as efficiently as possible thus outnumbering the remaining ranged, allowing a victory. It usually has to happen very fast otherwise the team gets whittled by projectiles and can't get a devastating enough victory in melee to be able to lose a couple more guys to ranged.

That last part is sooooo true.  Even when I'm playing an agi shielder and have a lot of people that will actually listen to me, most of the time there is any real ranged presence, or even if there are 1-2 actually good horse ranged on the other team, your only real option is to chase down whatever infantry will fight you as quickly and efficiently as possible and just hope they aren't smart enough to realize that they just simply shouldn't fight you if they want to win. 

ALSO.  If anyone who isn't a troll piece of shit reads this, I actually posted my own ideas on this subject on the previous page before numbskull shitheads who apparently can't read these posts in like 45 seconds derailed the thread.   "pull yourself together and take those what? 4? 5 minutes to read through my post."  What kind of subhuman would need that amount of time to read these posts?

[Ronin]

If you're not going to read something, what are you doing in a forum at the first place?

[Prpavi]

My main incentive to switch to HA was indeed partially the increase of ranged poplulation but more than that, I really disliked in what melee has turned into. High agi shielders and rondel trolls make my melee experience... well let's just say I hate to see medieval Usain Bolts, I'm not the one to judge, they found their fun and I found mine in return. I'm having an awfull time on my polearmer alt no matter how much I try.

The thing that would make me really consider retiring and going full melee again would probably be buff to the plate armor. Don't even care about the price, I lose tons of gold on the HA I'd rather be paying for a Plate instead. Like Kafein said in the current state and the incentive to go light and fast, ranged indeed have a bigger impact on the battlefield. Before I couldn't see myself winning the rounds off a horseback as a HA, but nowdays I am able to pull it off on ocassion (rare but it still happens). From my experience so far as a HA I avoid melee in general especailly the tank guys because I deal little to no damage to them, but by the end of the round I'm forced to engage them too and killing them more with bumps than arrows really, light/mid guys I can kill. I remember once shooting atleast 10 arrows into Tyrannosurus, he wrote to me in chat: no damage. If that was the case (not to that extreme) I would probably tank myself and feel really discouraged to pewpew, but the recent patch made the game go in the opposite direction unfortunatley and I never see this happening.

Make a knight a knight again, make him what he was in Medieval times and I gurantee you many will switch to melee.

[Strudog]

My main incentive to switch to HA was indeed partially the increase of ranged poplulation but more than that, I really disliked in what melee has turned into. High agi shielders and rondel trolls make my melee experience... well let's just say I hate to see medieval Usain Bolts, I'm not the one to judge, they found their fun and I found mine in return. I'm having an awfull time on my polearmer alt no matter how much I try.

The thing that would make me really consider retiring and going full melee again would probably be buff to the plate armor. Don't even care about the price, I lose tons of gold on the HA I'd rather be paying for a Plate instead. Like Kafein said in the current state and the incentive to go light and fast, ranged indeed have a bigger impact on the battlefield. Before I couldn't see myself winning the rounds off a horseback as a HA, but nowdays I am able to pull it off on ocassion (rare but it still happens). From my experience so far as a HA I avoid melee in general especailly the tank guys because I deal little to no damage to them, but by the end of the round I'm forced to engage them too and killing them more with bumps than arrows really, light/mid guys I can kill. I remember once shooting atleast 10 arrows into Tyrannosurus, he wrote to me in chat: no damage. If that was the case (not to that extreme) I would probably tank myself and feel really discouraged to pewpew, but the recent patch made the game go in the opposite direction unfortunatley and I never see this happening.

Make a knight a knight again, make him what he was in Medieval times and I gurantee you many will switch to melee.

This!

I use the heraldic brigandine at the moment, i use it because in my eyes it looks very cool and makes me feel like a knight, but its a shame when i die to 1-2 Arbalest shots, 2-3 arrows. Shields are useless. But if i die to 2 or more hits from  melee player, i know that's down to my own human error and not down to anyone else. But ranged i can don nothing about, a lucky shot that was not intended for me might miss that person and hit me in the head. i think the problem is that it is very hard to counter range.
  i just played shielder for a while now, Archers have too much ammo that they will continuously shoot at your shield without worrying about the ammo they have left, in my opinion this is the biggest problem. reduce the amount of projectiles flying around and make archers think before they shoot rather, than pew pew all round and find that they still have 10 bodkins left.

[Joker86]

Did I already mention conquest mode by the way? 

The thing is that currently battle mode is about killing, and this is where archers and cavalry exceed. Infantry is more about "not getting killed", but since the game mode is as it is in the moment, they are at a disadvantage. If battle would be about conquering and holding flags, infantry would gain an advantage over the other classes (thoughtfull map design assumed, of course), and if the rewards for the game mode would not be distributed by the awfull system we currently have, but for example by being close to a flag, things would be different. If people knew that the fastest way to level your character up would be to play infantry, I guess this could have an impact on the game. Especially considering that infantry wouldn't need to kill all those archers and horse archers and other nightmare classes any more to win. I guess this would be another part of the complex solution we need for the ranged problem...

[Strudog]

Did I already mention conquest mode by the way? 

The thing is that currently battle mode is about killing, and this is where archers and cavalry exceed. Infantry is more about "not getting killed", but since the game mode is as it is in the moment, they are at a disadvantage. If battle would be about conquering and holding flags, infantry would gain an advantage over the other classes (thoughtfull map design assumed, of course), and if the rewards for the game mode would not be distributed by the awfull system we currently have, but for example by being close to a flag, things would be different. If people knew that the fastest way to level your character up would be to play infantry, I guess this could have an impact on the game. Especially considering that infantry wouldn't need to kill all those archers and horse archers and other nightmare classes any more to win. I guess this would be another part of the complex solution we need for the ranged problem...

i completely disagree with the conquest idea, its essentially siege with more flags, the uniqueness of battle is that you have one life to do as well as possible and thus making that game much more exciting, where as siege i tend to jump on for a map or 2 and find myself bored because there is no real challenge to siege apart from spawning and dying over and over again. Conquest would be no more different, i still don't think people would swap class because they don't get enough xp, people will play the class they want to play and find the most fun, this is why you find all these agi rondel my old friends running around because people are bored of the combat system in M&B and find new ways to make fun. This is why a lot of people have changed from melee to archer because they have done everything they can do over a space of a couple of years in melee, of course the free respec did not help. The only way to solve the issue is to bring in a proper class balancing system or to Nerf ranged.

[Kafein]

i completely disagree with the conquest idea, its essentially siege with more flags, the uniqueness of battle is that you have one life to do as well as possible and thus making that game much more exciting, where as siege i tend to jump on for a map or 2 and find myself bored because there is no real challenge to siege apart from spawning and dying over and over again. Conquest would be no more different, i still don't think people would swap class because they don't get enough xp, people will play the class they want to play and find the most fun, this is why you find all these agi rondel my old friends running around because people are bored of the combat system in M&B and find new ways to make fun. This is why a lot of people have changed from melee to archer because they have done everything they can do over a space of a couple of years in melee, of course the free respec did not help. The only way to solve the issue is to bring in a proper class balancing system or to Nerf ranged.

The problem with unique spawns is that it is going to give an advantage to killer classes no matter what the gamemode is about. If you can just kill the enemy team and win that way, it's probably the easiest way to win.

[Rebelyell]

This is why a lot of people have changed from melee to archer because they have done everything they can do over a space of a couple of years in melee, of course the free respec did not help.

after 3 years of crpg as melee player I think i need another 6 to master every melee
crpg is closer to martial arts than every other game I ever saw

[722_]

Make a knight a knight again, make him what he was in Medieval times and I gurantee you many will switch to melee.

Plate buff sounds good, not only against ranged but also cut weapons.

[Kafein]

Plate buff sounds good, not only against ranged but also cut weapons

Killing people in melee already takes way too much time. Armor buff against ranged would be fine I guess, but an armor nerf against melee or simply a general melee damage buff would alleviate part of the problem.

[Leshma]

Besides, plate looks awful. If you crave plate, apply for strat battle.